Simplify Rails Application With JSONAPI-Resources

24 May 2021

Introduction

JSONAPI::Resources is a gem or a framework which helps us design the server  that works with json-api and resources. It requires attributes and relationships to work the servers and APIs.

Installation

To install the JS application-

• gem ‘jsonapi-resources’
• bundle

Why JSONAPI::Resources?

• JSONAPI::Resources makes the rails application more easy to communicate the json formatted data and api.
• With the help of jsonapi resources we don’t need to maintain the controller.
• JR makes it easy to communicate between the request and required data from the given resource table.

Work with rails application and jsonapi resources:

• Change the application controller: We can include the jsonapi resource controller in it to make the application controller work with jsonapi resource controller.
  OR
  We can just inherit the JSONAPI::ResourceController to ApplicationController.
  We can also do this on a controller basis so specific controllers can work for the API.
• Eager loading of the classes is needed to work this JSONAPI::Resources could be loaded and processed globally.
  
• We might get CORS issues when accessing from the browser so we have to install the CORS gem for the application.
  
• Use a rails generator to create a model for Users and that model is related to another model for Posts. It will look like this:
  • User model: rails g model User name:string
    
    
  • Post model: rails g model Post uset_id:integer title:string content:string
    
• Run the migration with ‘rake db:migrate’
• After this tables will look like this:
  • users table
    
  • posts table
    
• Use a rails generator to create the empty controllers and these controllers will be inherited from ResourceController.
  • rails g controller Users –skip-assets
  • rails g controller Posts –skip-assets
• Create a directory to hold the resources: mkdir app/resources.
• Create a resource for each model appending _resource.rb with the model name.
  • user_resource.rb
    
  • post_resource.rb
    
• Define the routes:
  
• Launch the rails server:  rails server.
• Create a new user:
  
• Create a new post:
  
• For more information about JR visit: https://jsonapi-resources.com/